The invention relates in general to munitions and in particular to modular artillery charge systems.
A modular artillery charge system (MACS) includes a three-piece combustible cartridge case design and a bi-directional center core ignition system. U.S. Pat. No. 5,747,723 issued on May 5, 1998 to Buckalew et al. discloses a MACS. The contents of U.S. Pat. No. 5,747,323 are incorporated by reference herein. FIG. 1 is a cross-sectional view of a MACS module 10 disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,747,723.
Module 10 includes a body 12, a center core tube 14, and a cap 16. Body 12 and cap 16 each have the general shape of a thin-walled hollow cylinder with an open end and a closed end. Cap 16 fits into and covers the open end of body 12. The closed ends of both cap 16 and body 12 have center holes 32, 30, respectively. Center core tube 14 is positioned longitudinally in body 12 and contacts both cap 16 and the closed end of body 12. The cavity formed by assembly of propelling charge module 10 is filled with an energetic material 18. Exterior surfaces of body 12 and cap 16 are coated with an environmental protection material 20.
Center core tube 14 holds a core igniter bag 22. Core igniter bag 22 contacts two end igniter bags 24 and 26. End igniter bag 24 occupies the center hole 30 in the closed end of body 12 and end igniter bag 26 occupies the center hole 32 in cap 16. End igniter bags 24 and 26 may be held in place by an attaching means 28.
The closed end of the body 12 at its center hole 30 has a conical surface 34 joined to a flat surface 36 joined to a tubular surface 38. Similarly, the closed end of cap 16 at its center hole 32 has a conical surface 40 joined to a flat surface 42 joined to a tubular surface 44.
The igniter bags 22, 24, 26 in the MACS module 10 are made of a rayon/viscose material. The rayon/viscose material is a flexible, non-rigid fabric. The design and manufacturing of the igniter bags is very labor intensive. The manufacture of the igniter bags involves manually sewing the rayon/viscose material. In addition, attaining the desired quality control from lot to lot is difficult. Thus, there are an excessive amount of rejects and scrapped parts. Igniter bags that deviate from the quality control standards pose serious threats, for example, hangfire, misfire and other performance related issues, when loaded in a MACS supported system and then ignited in a gun tube.
A need exists for an improvement of the MACS igniter system that is safer and efficiently mass produced. The improvement should yield consistent tolerances, reliability and performance to thereby mitigate potential hazards.